Post game thoughts South Florida

[I.I.]

1. We took their best shot and still won. That is what you get as a # 1 team...a target on your back.

2. Brandon Swannegan put up Michael Ruffin numbers and hands down wins the most improved player on the team. Would NOT have won without him.

3. Swannegan, Woodard, Harrison, Ray, Smith....... Everyone around me agreed that is our very best lineup on the floor. No question today.

4. USF will beat some contenders if they play like that. 50% from the floor.

5. The bandwagon crowd is slowly returning and getting their money's worth. This game alone worth another 300 or so in permanent attendance in getting people back.

6. I would love to replay the Bobby Knight comments. Maybe watch ESPN will have it archived.

7. I was worried that a South Florida or a Houston loss might really kill us in the at-large battle. Got by one of them now.

8. Confidence by Rashad Smith was huge today on those shots against a zone. And the zone breakdown for the layup by Rashad Ray actually saved the game by tying it with 30 seconds to go. A miss there and it is over.

9, Woodard brought us back several times and has to do that against all the zones we are seeing.

10. 9-0 in conference. I haven't seen that in my time with TU. Great job

This post was edited on 1/31 3:00 PM by I.I.

This post was edited on 1/31 1:00 PM by I.I.

 

[mvccane]

While Smith hit the bombs, he looks very tentative in the paint.

 

[TUBballJunkie]

Marquel victim of the TW curse?

 

[TU Hurricane Warning]

Smith was great in the paint today not sure why you thought he was tentative?

 

[Cairns824]

Thousands of fans across the nation were checking their phones, reading our names, and cursing every time we hit a late shot. That, to me, is pretty darn cool.

 

[bigzit]

Smith played awesome! Thought what he did in the paint on both ends were huge.

 

[T Up]

Woodard non-existent for 33 minutes.
Wright non-existent period.
Curtis slow and 0-5 from the field with 3+ turnovers.
Harrison and Woodard 4 for 12 from the line, Team misses 12 of 27 from the stripe.
South Florida shoots 50% for the game and the same from 3-point line.
Three guards for SF score 66 of the teams 71 points.

AND WE WIN.............

Unbelievable. We dodged a bullet today. Swannie was a beast today. Best game ever. He and Smith were co-mvps. Great to see both of them blossom. Gutty win that would haven't happened in the past 10 years here. Proud of how someone steps up every game.

We will be seeing zone, box and one, triangle and two for the rest of the year. Only way to slow down Shaq is pack it in. Very effective when they put a defensive athletic on James and can slow him down. That's when everyone else has to pick it up. Took 36 minutes tonight but we got there. I think Stevie is done. Too slow and has zero confidence in his shot. Need Littlejohn, Dew or even Nick Woods to be able to come in for spot minutes and hit the open shot. They were giving it to Curtis tonight and he couldn't convert. Got to have an outside shooter or just continue to have to grind for 40 every night.

All told, great great win. Now the real season begins.....

 

[astonmartin708]

Yup. Curtis played like crud today. He wasn't hitting shots or getting fouled and he was being taken advantage of defensively. We desperately need a semi-polished wing who can shoot a three here and there. Smith showed that today when it counted.... Hopefully he continues his confident streak.

 

[youngblood223]

Originally posted by T Up:
Woodard non-existent for 33 minutes.
Wright non-existent period.
Curtis slow and 0-5 from the field with 3+ turnovers.
Harrison and Woodard 4 for 12 from the line, Team misses 12 of 27 from the stripe.
South Florida shoots 50% for the game and the same from 3-point line.
Three guards for SF score 66 of the teams 71 points.

AND WE WIN.............

Unbelievable. We dodged a bullet today. Swannie was a beast today. Best game ever. He and Smith were co-mvps. Great to see both of them blossom. Gutty win that would haven't happened in the past 10 years here. Proud of how someone steps up every game.

We will be seeing zone, box and one, triangle and two for the rest of the year. Only way to slow down Shaq is pack it in. Very effective when they put a defensive athletic on James and can slow him down. That's when everyone else has to pick it up. Took 36 minutes tonight but we got there. I think Stevie is done. Too slow and has zero confidence in his shot. Need Littlejohn, Dew or even Nick Woods to be able to come in for spot minutes and hit the open shot. They were giving it to Curtis tonight and he couldn't convert. Got to have an outside shooter or just continue to have to grind for 40 every night.

All told, great great win. Now the real season begins.....

I think a lot of teams will show us zone, especially the bottom four or five teams in the league. But I doubt we see the upper tier teams abandon their principles for a zone. Plus, could be argued that zone lost them the game. Sure, we shot and missed 17 threes, but we also had 21 offensive rebounds. If we'd made our free throws this game was ours in regulation.

We played as good as we have played in any game this year against USF on the road. We were flawless in the second half. I give them a ton of credit for making shots today. But they got a few sweet breaks today as you outlined above. Never overreact to one game. Even keel. On to the next one...

 

[Hardmoneysniper]

I would like to see stevie get to the free throw line more. He seems to
Be knocking them down.

 

[dmarsh1985]

Have no problems with Stevie, he's doing what he should, he's put in to shoot the ball and he comes in a shoot. Haith is showing him confidence by putting him in on a consistent basis, but when he doesn't make the first one or two he doesn't have time to get in the groove. I agree with this with his defensive liability, however, I wish for a blowout to get him more time as well as Dew and Littlejohn and Big E

 

[drboobay]

Watching SMU we will need BIG E to give us some fouls and take up some space in the lane. We could use some good minutes from him.
Posted from Rivals Mobile

 

[dmarsh1985]

Love Haiths comments in locker room, see tulsahurricane - coach understands this team, love it

 

[TU_BLA]

I think someone pointed out that we started 1-16 from 3 and finished 6-8. Hit them when they needed them most. Hit those 6-8 early and USF comes out of the junk D. Swannegan is showing more and more refinement in his move to the basket. Should he start in place of Dre or do you keep him coming off the bench and have him and Ray bring that energy?

Smith's mid-range game has been excellent the last 6-7 games.
Posted from Rivals Mobile

 

[ozarkhick]

I love the USF guy on AAC bbs who had to come on and literally accuse us of paying of the refs.

Did we really save up our money to buy the refs for USF? I expect wiser allocations of our "ref payoff fund" than against USF!

That's like paying off a fat kid to lose an 800 meter race. Or paying Pee-Wee Herman to take a dive in a boxing match.

We need to petition the AD to use our "buying the refs" slush fund more wisely from now on.

 

[Steve Zissou]

Stevie expected the shot to fall when he took it. Curtis looked like he expected to miss as soon as he took the shot.

Swanigan played great D (as did Smith) and attacked hard. Ray attacked, Harrison attacked less than normal, and Woodard didn't attack until late.

I'm sure the team wasn't expecti a tough game. They hit open shots early, got confidence and hit contested shots late.

 

[PhoggyBottom]

These are the games you have to win to get a conference title. You have to win your home games, beat the bottom half of the conference, and win a few when you don't have your A game.

 

[rabidTU]

The remainder of this year is going to come down to outside shooting. The best/consisitent outside shooters are going to have to carry us from now on IMO. Ray is going to have to get more minutes because of that and the probable need to matchup against Nic Moore when we play SMU - quick on quick.

 

[TUBballJunkie]

Just watched Ray tie it to go to OT.

That foul with 2.7 left was so smart. Announcers talking about it before it happened too.
Posted from Rivals Mobile

 

[I.I.]

Originally posted by TUBballJunkie:
Just watched Ray tie it to go to OT.

That foul with 2.7 left was so smart. Announcers talking about it before it happened too.

Posted from Rivals Mobile

If Ray doesn't make that move and score......game over...

 

[GoldandBlew]

Originally posted by Hardmoneysniper:
I would like to see stevie get to the free throw line more. He seems to
Be knocking them down.

That would mean he would have to actually play and have a dribble drive game. The only reason he got into this game was because of the foul trouble by Woodard and the ineffectiveness of Curtis. His FT's looked great but his shot looked rushed and he didn't look ready to shoot the ball. His threes weren't close to going in and he immediately got beat on defense and got called for a foul sending USF to the FT line. Rep just wont get many minutes if he can't play defense and I don't see that changing. If we need someone to make FT's in the final minute then put him in the game but otherwise he is good sitting on the bench IMO. Besides, I don't see his scholarship being renewed and we don't need to put time in on him. Give his minutes to Littlejohn and Dew.
This post was edited on 2/1 3:18 PM by GoldandBlew

 

[youngblood223]

Originally posted by GoldandBlew:

Originally posted by Hardmoneysniper:
I would like to see stevie get to the free throw line more. He seems to
Be knocking them down.

That would mean he would have to actually play and have a dribble drive game. The only reason he got into this game was because of the foul trouble by Woodard and the ineffectiveness of Curtis. His FT's looked great but his shot looked rushed and he didn't look ready to shoot the ball. His threes weren't close to going in and he immediately got beat on defense and got called for a foul sending USF to the FT line. Rep just wont get many minutes if he can't play defense and I don't see that changing. If we need someone to make FT's in the final minute then put him in the game but otherwise he is good sitting on the bench IMO. Besides, I don't see his scholarship being renewed and we don't need to put time in on him. Give his minutes to Littlejohn and Dew.
This post was edited on 2/1 3:18 PM by GoldandBlew

Glad you wrote that... But yea, I agree...

 

[I.I.]

I still think we try Rep against the zones. I saw him make a bunch last year. So I know he can make them. His shot Saturday was half way down and you could tell he felt it as he was backpedalling after the shot. That being said, there may be better all-round players who can shoot the three for next year's roster.

 

[Muskogee9]

Ah, you know REP is kicking his own rear hard enough........once they start falling, he'll be alright......I think it's a positive that coach put him in the game before all those younger guys. It tells me REP is hitting them in practice.

The mental part of any sport is much greater than anyone can imagine.

 

[BasPlayr]

Originally posted by Muskogee9:
Ah, you know REP is kicking his own rear hard enough........once they start falling, he'll be alright......I think it's a positive that coach put him in the game before all those younger guys. It tells me REP is hitting them in practice.

The mental part of any sport is much greater than anyone can imagine.

The one disenting factor to what you say is that we've been saying this for 2 years now. He' shad enough experience at this level to find that shot. Until he starts delivering it consistantly, he is on borrowed time I'm afraid.

His defensive laibility, and his inability to get that shot to fall consistently would be the end on just about any top D1 teams.


Don't get me wrong, I like the young man, and I think he is fully capable. But something just isn't clicking yet, and time is running out on his opportunity.

You have to look at the whole team and each players benefit to the team. If there is more positive than negative, you keep them.

 

[NO-Orange]

First game I watched in years -- like the coach and the team -- the better team most certainly won and played well when it mattered ... these kinds of performances happen.

Knight actually is a good commentator IMHO -- had very positive things to say about the league and TU in particular.